I'm about to start out with a new party, and would like some ideas for party building. Mainly class/race, and eventual class switching (if recommended).

Normally I run a Pally, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Cleric (switch to Bishop), and Wiz. Blah, too generic.

Recommendations and why?

Thanks in advance.

• RE: Party Recommendations,Seyal (Guest), 11:54 AM, Dec-13-01
  • RE: Party Recommendations,Cherub, 12:13 PM, Dec-13-01
    • RE: Party Recommendations,lemongoose (Guest), 10:36 AM, Dec-16-01
      • RE: Party Recommendations,Cherub, 10:58 AM, Dec-16-01
• RE: Party Recommendations,Sven Sarrowsong (Guest), 03:00 PM, Dec-13-01
• RE: Party Recommendations,kiwi, 03:45 PM, Dec-13-01
• RE: Party Recommendations,Velvet Ham (Guest), 10:17 PM, Dec-14-01

LAST EDITED ON Dec-13-01 AT 07:52 PM (Pacific) by Llevram (admin)

Maybe you could try a Psi instead of a Mage (since your bishop can learn healing and attack spells, and you could ignore Psionics because you Psionicist will have that covered), Samurai instead of a Paladin for the Lightning strike skill and occassional instant kill in melee combat.

the samurai is really great in wiz8. try to take one. and i also agree with taking a psionoic instead of a mage because i personally like his spells more. in wiz7 i really didint like the psionic but in 8 he is great. i made my bishop running mage/psionic and had a cleric with me.

btw: did anyone find a nice weapon for a ninja? my ninja has two nunchakus since the beginning and i didnt find a better weapon although i think iam almost at the end of the game

I posted about this a bit earlier. There is a weapon for a ninja that is really great, but only a specific race can use it. I've redone the game for this very reason, and it's made the ninja worthwhile. I was not that impressed w/ her before. I should mention that I have no idea how this ninja will work later in the game tho. I'm not too far, yet.

yep, the cane of corpus is a great weapon but i dont want to kill this guy for the weapon and my ninja is a felpur

For my 4th group I am running the following:

Draco Fighter
Hobbit Rogue
Felpur Ranger
Rawolf Cleric ----> Valkrie
Mook Bard
Farie Mage ----> Bishop

I have the Fighter and Rogue in the front line as well as the NPC Vi (well she is on a flank with a polearm). Cleric, Bard are in the middle and Ranger brings up the rear.

Fighter will take more damage and deal more then the hybrid classes... No need for my main tank to be able to cast after all he is THE MAIN TANK!

Rogue does good damage and has same AC as my Fighter with her stealth, 100dex special skill and magic junk on her. She cover pick pocket and lock/trap so my Bard is free to concentrait on communication, artifact and song. My Bard is just as effective with her instruments as my Mage is with his spells plus she wears good armor and can do good ranged damage.

Ranger = no need to go into search mode and does ranged crits. He can backup heal and buff/debuff as well.

Cleric heals, buffs, debuffs and will also be backup melee when she is switched to a Valkrie.

Bard is a life saver. I don't have the time or paitence to fully explain how valuble she is to the group. Lets just say if no for her I would be in a world of hurt. My Bard is focused on song, communication, artifact and mythology.

Mage is great for buff/debuffs and raw damage to large groups. Plus he is funny to listen to! He will be even more usful when he becomes a Bishop. Then he will be SUPER DEBUFFER!

All and all this is a well rounded group. After adding NPC gagiteer and monk there will be no gaps. Only thing I don't have fully covered is the psyonic spell book but my Mage/Bishop will have it covered enough to get by.

Sven Sarrowsong

I went with:

Lord
Samurai
Ninja
Gadgeteer
Priest --> Bishop
Mage

Before I left the monestary, I gave the Lord, Samurai and Ninja one level of Priest, Mage and Alchemist respecively. This jumpstarted their magic. After that, just using it let me stay on schedule. As for fighting. The Samurai and Ninja do consistant damage the lord's a bit weaker. I'm thinking that maybe I should make him a fighter, however everyone says he gets better toward the end of the game. The gadgeteer has been great. He doesn't have many gadgets yet, but the ones he has have added greatly to the fights. The mage is straight forward. Buy him as many spells as you can. Get Fireball and Freeze Flesh as quickly as you can as they will get you through many a fight. As for the priest/bishop. I found that priests tend to be a bit weak on the offensive firepower, so I switched over at around level 3 or 4... My bishop is now becoming an excellent psionic as well as tinkering in alchemy. Buy up as many spell books as you can. In fact, I am even buying up the mage spell books and plan on having my bishop start to learn them. At the very least he gets more spell points.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-14-01 AT 10:46 PM (Pacific) by Llevram (admin)

I don't recommend class switching at all, more harm than good with level based spawning areas, class switched characters will be at a disadvantage, that make any sense?

Editors note (while I am here): That was true in WIz 7, but not here. Your characters don't "lose" levels when they switch. If you gain 5 levels as a rogue and 3 as a bard, you are still a level 8 character in Wiz 8.

anyway the important thing (depending how you play) is status magic and watching your flank

This is my party after a lot of experimentation and has worked really well

Fighter/Dracon (Front) - fighters own, being a pure class and stamina regen, extra hp, natural chance to KO, beserk, and dracon breath attack was useful early-mid game

Rogue/Felpurr (Front) - rogues do a hell of a lot of melee damage ... minor spoilers follow (try using bloodlust for beserk + backstab =), and the npc rogue doesn't follow you to too many places, I wanted a reliable locksmith...

Valkarie/Rawolf (Flank) - cheat death is interesting, but there are some nice spears in the game, and Extended works well on a flank, she does great damage as well

Bard/Felpurr (Flank) - bards own, and also you can wear a shield while using music thus extra boost of ac for free, pumping shield skill per level, thus she (defiantely make your bard female for stamina regen items) could take damage, but mainly relied on ranged combat when not using music, she was also my pickpocket guru

Ranger/Elven (Rear) - elven bow, guess this was more rp for me than practical, rangers are ok, not too special, auto ranged search is nice and needed a ranged character to bring up the rear

Bishop/Faerie (middle) - faerie regenerate magic and specialized in mage and priest for the buff spells and alchemy is covered by ranger. I saw no need for psionics since haste is covered by the bard and magery has plenty of status effects. Also auto remove curse is nice with the many cursed weapons I liked to use

hope that helps a little, i had a samurai instead of rogue first time but he couldn't compare even with lightning speed (drained his stamina) and a lot of daggers have kill % so critical strike I wasn't worried about)